"The Washington politician's view of what is going on in the United States has been substituted for what is actually happening in the country," former president of the A.P. Wes Gallagher pointed out in the mid-1970s, a time when the press enjoyed a brief hour of post-Watergate freeness.

And why would Washington politicians want us to know that our knowledge of them comes from them? That is the kind of knowledge that awakens a sleeping people, that dissolves political myths and penetrates political disguises.

To keep all such dreaded knowledge from the rest of us is the "information policy" of those who rule us. And so it is we hear, from the left as well as the right, the steady drone about media power.

There is more, same page… what? you think this 'lie down fall down party' is <gasp> NEW??:

From the "frightening information policy" to the impeachable offenses documented in the shunned Iran-Contra report, the private story behind every major non-story during the Reagan Administration was the Democrats' tacit alliance with Reagan.

It is this complicity, and not the Reagan Administration's deft "management" of the news we hear so much about, that explains the press's supineness during the Reagan years. As usual, it was Congress that was managing the news.

"It was very hard to write stories raising questions about Reagan's policy, because the Democrats weren't playing the role of an opposition party," said the A.P.'s Parry [that's Robert Parry], explaining to Hertsgaard why the press seemed to be "on bended knee" during the Reagan years. Congress, said Leslie Stahl of CBS News, "has not been a source for the press in the whole Reagan Administration.

They don't want to criticize this beloved man."

Even good stories fell flat, said Jonathan Kwitny, a Wall Street Journal reporter at the time, because "there is no opposition within the political system."

When the Times, to its credit, reported on August 8, 1985, that White House aides were giving "direct military advice" to the President's private Contra army, Reagan replied at a press conference that "we're not violating any laws."

Democratic leaders asked the President's national security adviser, Robert McFarlane (later convicted for his answer), whether the President was Iying, after which they assured the press there was nothing to the report.

And for many months one of the most momentous stories of our time "just went nowhere," as Larry Speakes, Reagan's press secretary, boasted to Hertsgaard.

The pain is not over (remember the image from above, the elephant before its pliant orchestra):

For eight years the Democratic opposition had shielded from the public a feckless, lawless President with an appalling appetite for private power.

That was the story of the Reagan years, and Washington journalists evidently knew it. Yet they never turned the collusive politics of the Democratic Party into news.

Slavishly in thrall to the powerful, incapable of enlightening the ruled without the consent of the rulers, the working press, the "star" reporters, the pundits, the sages, the columnists passed on to us, instead, the Democrats' mendacious drivel about the President's "Teflon shield."

For eight years we saw the effects of a bipartisan political class in action, but the press did not show us that political class acting, exercising its collective power, making things happen, contriving the appearances that were reported as news.

It rarely does.

The rather laughable remedy?, or so they sell themselves to be…

Don't miss this one (and believe me, my bleeding, liberal til I die, small "d" democratic heart has long opposed the Liebermans of the game):

Ned Lamont is going to be a fantastic Senator. I'm proud of all of our work, together, in putting him on the path to getting there. And that's why you should give. Not because he needs the money, though he does. But because this is an investment in yourself. This is an investment in what it means to be a citizen, to take action, to affect the country and the world, and to let hope triumph over apathy and cynicism.

You'll be proud of yourself if you give. And if you're near Connecticut, sign up to volunteer. This is our country, our party, and our America. And we're taking it back.

Lamont is little more than diversion. I rather suspect some pique over this or that, perhaps deeply rooted. Some disposable time and cash (but not enough, tho a lot spent), some flexing by the BBB toward a "technologist". Yes, that is Lamont's definition of himself, for some years now.

Add in some out of office CT Dems and operatives who may enjoy a "run" at Lieberman, mix in lofty ideas from the recent display by Hackett.. and voila, you have an "insurgent" run.

The appearance of one, that is.

The exhortation in the solicitation for Lamont is to return our nation to ''greatness''.

Like this:

Related

I think they purposely killed the effectiveness of the “netroots” by constantly sending it on wild goose chases and diverting attention from real issues… hence the lack of FP coverage of the immigration rallies. The only thing they seemed to have “won” is a ruling not to have their finances from politicos publicly scrutinized.

As I recall this same blog was 110% in FAVOR of Lieberman‘s diffusing the Democrats right to filibuster… it was said to be a GENIOUS strategerie…

The collusion between the GOP, Dem and MSM was made starkly clear in “Mrs. Alito’s Tears”.

The Dems had no acceptable rational to confirm Alito so together with the GOP they staged the biggest song and dance diversion featuring Mrs. Alitos tears… enabling them to swept Alito on to the bench because they did not want to be seen as bullies making the ladies cry.

Meanwhile, the bleating sheep of the MSM and blogtopia sang the chorus to this two step… and promptly changed the subject thereafter and has never mentioned Roberts nor Alito again.

So.

One of the participants in the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville was a man named Peter Tefft. He was outed by the Twitter group "Yes, You're Racist," which had been posting screenshots of participants in an effort to expose them. His father, Pearce Tefft, has come out and publicly denounced his white supremacist son in an open letter […]

Heather Heyer is the latest casualty in a number of deaths at the hands of white nationalists. Foreign Policy recently published an FBI and Department of Homeland Security bulletin that concluded white supremacist groups were "responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016...more than any other domestic extremist movement." Despite th […]

As President Trump faces growing outrage over his response to the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, we bring you an exclusive: an interview with the great-great-grandsons of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson. At least 1,500 symbols of the Confederacy can be found in public spaces across the country. But now a number of the monu […]

In a wide ranging discussion, Nina Turner and Paul Jay focus on the role of Trump, the GOP, corporate Democrats and corporate media in perpetuating systemic racism; they also address whether Nazi's should have a right to organize public rallies

Ecuador's former president Rafael Correa is accusing recently elected president Lenin Moreno of moving the country to the right, using corruption accusations against Vice-President and Correa friend Jorge Glas as cover. TRNN's Greg Wilpert reports

BRIDGEWATER, N.J./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Thursday decried the removal of monuments to the pro-slavery Civil War Confederacy, echoing white nationalists and drawing stinging rebukes from fellow Republicans in a controversy that has inflamed racial tensions.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has stepped up his attacks on Republican senators, an approach he may regret if he is someday impeached and the Senate has to weigh charges against him stemming from an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has abandoned plans to create an infrastructure advisory council, the White House said on Thursday, the day after two other advisory groups were dismantled over the furor caused by Trump's remarks on white supremacists.

(Reuters) - Wisconsin's Republican-controlled state Assembly voted 59-30 on Thursday to approve a bill that paves the way for a $3 billion incentives package for a proposed liquid-crystal display plant by Taiwan's Foxconn.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.